<p>So I'll admit that I have a horrible history with standardized testing, barley scored average on my ACT if I can remember correctly. I'm taking the GRE the 25th of October and I don't think I'll do well on it but here's my other stats. I have a 3.83 GPA, double majoring in biology and geology with a history minor, go to one of the top ranked state schools in the country, currently working on a senior thesis (high possibility of publication), working in a biology lab for bioinformatics (getting credit), worked as a lab tech and have a couple of EC on the side. I want to get my M.S in geology and my advisor suggested, Rice, UT Austin, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Stanford, University of Wisconsin - Madison, and U of Arizona. I feel everything on my application will be strong expect for my GRE's. I hear the general notion that they're the least important part of your application. Any thoughts ? </p>
<p>GRE’s are sometimes used to triage applications. However, is is well known that GREs measure only one’s ability to do well on the GREs themselves and not one’s potential to be a productive researcher. If you have a very supportive research advisor, that could help you get past the initial phase of the application process. Once that is done, then the rest of your application will be much more important. As your research mentor if he/she can provide you with a personal introduction.</p>
<p>Columbia,</p>
<p>I am a a senior undergrad applying to grad school MS grad programs but not geology. However, my roommate is also a senior undergrad and he is applying to MS geology programs and is a geology undergrad. He (and I) is actually from UT Austin which is on your list but he is not applying to any of those programs on your list so neither of us can speak for those in particular. He told me that for geology MS in general, the GRE is not very important but you have to meet the minimum GRE score for the school if they have one. Some geology MS programs have minimum GRE scores they want you to have and some don’t have any required GRE score. You can usually find that information on their website or ask the graduate geology advisor of that school or someone if you are unsure. If the school has a minimum GRE req and you don’t meet it, you are likely not going to be going to that school. That’s what my roommate said about Geology MS which is pretty much the same for my mathematics and computer science MS schools that I’m applying to. </p>
<p>However, one thing that my roommate said about MS geology programs that was a lot different than the MS program requirements that I’m applying to is that for the MS geology programs, the schools (at least all 10 or so he’s looked at) will require you interview with one of the geology professors (usually by phone) before applying. This is because those geology professors will be part of the decision committee and when looking at the applicants, will ask each other if anyone knows who _____ is and then the professor who interviewed you is supposed to speak up and comment about you, otherwise they more or less toss your application unless it’s near perfect. You may or may not already know about that but I thought I might as well just point that out. That would seem to lessen the importance of your GRE score a little bit provided that the interview goes well.</p>
<p>I don’t believe any of my programs have a minimum GRE score including UT Austin </p>
<p>Anybody else want to reply ?</p>
<p>Top programs either don’t have minimum score requirements, or set them very low; however, it would be a mistake to infer based on this information that top programs actually accept people with low GREs.</p>
<p>I don’t know about your field in particular, but I know that in the humanities, selective grad programs have internal numerical cutoffs which serve to weed out half their applicant pools before the admissions committees have even started reviewing applications. And a high GPA may not actually help you; many academics become suspicious of the rigor of your program if there’s a big discrepancy between your grades and your GRE scores. I have read statements from individual science professors to the same effect.</p>
<p>The truth is that if you’re applying to a program that gets too many applications every year, and your GRE scores are below whatever line that program has come up with to make the selection process easier, your application may not get read at all. And information about these cutoffs is rarely available to the public.</p>
<p>As @xraymancs said, though, once you’re past the initial screening, your GRE scores shouldn’t have too much of an effect (though they may still get brought up in some context).</p>
<p>So the GRE alone is enough to get you rejected ?</p>
<p>Look, I’m not the oracle of grad school admissions. I don’t know. However, I did not say “the GRE alone is enough to get you rejected.” I said that at certain programs, namely the ones that get hundreds of applicants for a handful of spots, a time-saving admission strategy involves culling the applicant pool before in-depth application review, and the basis on which applications are culled includes the GRE. This assumption is corroborated by the GRE scores of people admitted to highly selective programs in most disciplines, as those scores all tend to be above certain invisible, school-specific cutoff lines, with small exceptions. (If you go to The GradCafe, for example, and search for philosophy admits to Princeton, Rutgers and NYU, which are some of the top programs in philosophy, you’ll notice that they all have GRE scores of at least 167 V / 160 Q. Based on this clue, you can assume that a person with 160 V / 155 Q is very unlikely to be accepted there and may in fact not even get a look in.)</p>
<p>Maybe at some schools there are application attributes that are easily identifiable by the admission committee and can compensate for a low GRE score. Maybe at some schools every application gets read in full and the GRE carries less initial weight. There are many possible ways a department can run graduate admissions. But for many of them, there is such a thing as a GRE score that is too low.</p>
<p>It is possible to have a GRE score which will exclude you from those highly selective programs who have applicants which typically all have the same kind of academics as you but who also have a higher GRE. Less selective programs are more likely to look at all the applications.</p>
<p>It may not have been said, but it looks like from what you’re saying the GRE, if low enough, can get you rejected. The standardized test craze in this country is too much </p>
<p>I don’t think it is a craze. It is a piece of information. Frankly, if I have an applicant for a physics or engineering program with a quantitative GRE score of below 50%, I am pretty sure that individual will have a hard time surviving in their courses. Since I am at a small university, I can afford to look at even these applicants and see if their academic transcripts and letters are indicating otherwise. If I am at a so-called “top” program and have 500 applicants when I know that I can only take 20, then the GRE and overall GPA are logical data to use to screen the applicants and determine which ones I will actually read thoroughly.</p>
<p>To me, the GPA is a much better indicator of that then the GRE. Especially if you went to a top well known school. As I said before I got a 21 on the ACT and I currently have a 3.83 GPA as a double major. Standardized tests are very poor indicators of success </p>
<p>Why do you think you’ll do badly? Did you do the free on-line practice tests? They don’t include the essay but the rest is pretty accurate. Both my D’s took it and scored within point of what they got on practice. I think it helps that it’s all on computer. I think the ETS website has some data about the scores needed on average for different level programs.</p>
<p>“To me, the GPA is a much better indicator of that then the GRE. Especially if you went to a top well known school. As I said before I got a 21 on the ACT and I currently have a 3.83 GPA as a double major. Standardized tests are very poor indicators of success”</p>
<p>It’s nice that you think that, but you asked if the GRE was important in grad school admissions and we said yes. Your personal opinion on how predictive it is of grad school success is irrelevant, poorly informed and actually completely beside the point. As xraymancs said, the programs that use the GRE to weed out applicants know that they have more applicants who would succeed at their program than they can admit.</p>
<p>Do your best on the GRE, bear in mind the truism that it’s just one part of the application, and apply to programs where your score won’t keep you out of consideration. Not that hard.</p>
<p>I took one practice test from that ETS program and I don’t even know what happened to the results. I’m taking the GRE the 25th, in about two weeks, and I don’t know what I should do. As stated before I typically don’t perform well on standardize tests and I have exiety. I’m working through the Princeton review book and that reminds me, does anyone have an opinion on there book ? </p>